Business: Necessary Expense

In its 1935 tax returns. Empire Gas & Electric Co., subsidiary of shrewd, roly-poly Howard Colwell Hopson’s Associated Gas & Electric Co., took a $38,543 deduction for the cost of lobbying against the Public Utility Holding Company Act. With some heat, the Internal Revenue Bureau rejected the claim. Last week in Washington, Empire Gas took it up with the Board of Tax Appeals, asked why lobbying should not be considered a “necessary business expense.”